Published 4:30 am, Sunday, May 25, 2014

You hope that each generation will carry on the ideals that made this country great, and that's probably true in spite of what you read occasionally. Like these two gems:

-- A middle school in Rhode Island planned to cancel its honors night because officials decided that recognizing students who do well is, uh, too "exclusive."

-- An elementary school in Michigan decided that the "competitive 'urge to win' will be kept to a minimum" at the school's annual field day because, well, all students should consider themselves "winners."

Sheesh. Have we sunk that far?

The good news, sort of, is that the bad news isn't quite so bad. After a national outcry, the bozos who run the Archie R. Cole Middle School in the affluent town of East Greenwich, Rhode Island, decided to revive the honors program after all.

"We are exceedingly proud of the outstanding achievements of Cole students," the educrats said, "and obviously had no intention of failing to acknowledge and celebrate exemplary student accomplishment in its many forms."

Hmmm, wonder why so many people felt they indeed had every intention to do just that? Probably from the asinine memo that announced the original decision:

"Members of the school community have long expressed concerns related to the exclusive nature of Honors Night," it said. Therefore school officials made a "collective decision to recognize students during team-based recognition ceremonies" instead.

Sheesh. Where'd they learn nonsense like that? My guess would be from the left-wing professors who indoctrinated them in college and repeatedly used phrases like "collective decision" and "team-based recognition."

But at least this misguided gang backed off - this time. Unfortunately, "the urge to win" is still being frowned upon at the field day for North Hill Elementary in Rochester Hills, Michigan. No word, though, on whether any child who crumples into tears after finishing sixth in the 50-yard dash will need special counseling to deal with this misfortune.

These two examples are outrageous, of course, but they aren't that rare. The open secret is that competition and achievement are frowned upon by many liberals, and the education profession is riddled with them. These naive souls can't accept the reality that some people are smarter or more motivated than others, so they try to grind everything into the mush of mediocrity.

They don't seem to realize that this debate was settled long ago, with the United States serving as Exhibit A and the Soviet Union as Exhibit B. And if we continue to reward success and celebrate achievement, we'll keep generating more prosperity for more people. But if the next generation believes that it automatically deserves a passing grade or trophy just for showing up, that there's something wrong with winners and entrepreneurs, we will slide back down the hill.

Personally, I like the view from the peak.

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Thomas Taschinger, TTaschinger@BeaumontEnterprise.com, is the editorial page editor of The Beaumont Enterprise. Follow him on Twitter at @PoliticalTom